Anne Salenger Papers

Anne Salenger is a longtime Malibu resident. She and her husband, Gary Salenger, have lived on Sunset Mesa since 1970. Anne served as the Head of Recruitment and Training on the Docent Advisory Council for the Malibu Lagoon Museum in the late 1980s. As such, she was responsible for training and supporting volunteer docents at the museum in accordance with the Malibu Lagoon Museum Docent Manual, so that they could educate visitors about Malibu and the museum’s history. Marge Merrick inscribed and dedicated the very first copy of “Ceramic Art of the Malibu Potteries” (1988) to Anne Salenger because of her key role as Museum Docent Chair.

The contents of these papers are primarily related to the Malibu Lagoon Museum, which is located alongside the historic Adamson House near Surfrider Beach in Malibu, California. The museum contains a collection of artifacts, rare photographs, and documents depicting the history of Malibu from the early Chumash Indian era through the development of a Spanish California culture. The Adamson House also is open to visitors. Docents, offering tours showcasing the house’s unique Californian architecture, beautiful Malibu tiles, original furniture, and preserved 1930s gardens. Both the museum and house showcase Malibu's unique history with special emphasis on the influential Adamson family that lived on-site before the preservation of the site by the Malibu Historical Society. With continued support from docents and a volunteer board, California State Parks currently stewards the Adamson House and the Malibu Lagoon Museum.

The museum and Adamson house have a rich history in Malibu. Rhoda Rindge, daughter of Frederick Hastings Rindge, renowned businessman and the last owner of Malibu, married Merritt Adamson, the son of an Arizona legislator and sheep rancher. The land where the Adamson house now sits was then donated to Rhoda Rindge Adamson by her mother, May Knight Rindge, so the couple could build a vacation home outside of Los Angeles. The house, designed by well-known architect Stiles Clements for the Adamson family, was constructed in 1929 and was first used as a beach house beginning in 1930. Rhoda Adamson resided in the house until her death in 1962. As Pepperdine’s Malibu campus opened, the family of Helen and Norvel Young lived in the Adamson House for 13 years. When the State of California bought the property from the Adamson family in 1968 with plans to use the land for beach parking, the house was saved by a passionate group of Malibu residents concerned about the location's unique architecture and Malibu tiles in 1977. In 1982, the house was converted into museum space in just ten months.